We just got back from a long weekend in South Bend, Indiana to celebrate a college friend’s wedding. My mom graciously took care of the bigger kids so we only had Gemma with us, and oh my goodness it was amazing. She slept for a couple of hours at a time on the drive, allowing us to talk uninterrupted–lap of luxury right there, folks. Continue reading →

I’m finally starting to feel recovered from the weekend, and the laundry pile has an end in sight, so I can justify a few minutes here.

Saturday we went to Minnesota for a college friend’s wedding. We only live about 2 hours apart, but I’m terrible about the whole meaning-to-do-things-then-never-getting-around-to-it thing, so it’s the first time we actually went to see her. We managed to make it into the church just in time, but I ended up missing the best part (vows, of course) because in our hurry to get in, we didn’t change Grace and there was a wardrobe issue of the very wet variety. So! I think half the ceremony was spent in the church bathroom. Of course, we didn’t bring a change of nice clothes for her, so we had to hit up Walmart for something wedding appropriate… which was much more difficult than I had expected. In retrospect, since it was crazy hot, we should have just let her wear her shorts and tank top after all… but oh well. Continue reading →

5. Growing new friendships. It’s been hard being far away from many of the people I’m the closest to, but it’s been so good to make the change from acquaintances to friends with the people we’ve met here.

6. Lovely weather. I think May is my favorite month, mostly because of the weather. I love the sunshine, flowers blooming, green grass, and perfect temperatures, with all the promise of summer yet to come. And, perhaps best of all, the bugs aren’t out in full force yet. Wins all around.

7. Speaking of flowers, my first rose appeared yesterday on one of the bushes in front of the house. I can’t wait to enjoy them all summer.

I’m going to be taking a leetle technology break (don’t worry, I’ll still have my not-smart phone) since I’ll be traveling to and from the land of my birth (read: New York not-the-city) to host a last minute bridal shower for my best friend and see some fam, making a pit stop on the way home in good ol’ Steubenville to pick up my brother from college. So, obviously, I’ll be busy doing important things for a week and devoting myself wholeheartedly to my family, thus keeping me from actually blogging about it in real time.

Also, there will be practically no Internet access, which may or may not be the real reason for my hiatus.

Peace out friends, I look forward to catching up on everyone’s blogs next week whilst I decompress from this marathon road trip.

So we made a super quick long-weekend trip to Ohio for our university’s homecoming weekend a couple of weeks ago. It was a complete whirlwind, but we loved every minute. My college girlfriends had a reunion that weekend and it was so good to see everyone again, especially since most of us hadn’t seen each other in at least two years. We also got to finally introduce Grace to everyone, especially a couple of “aunties” who send her fun gifts regularly. Joe and Grace got to spend a lot of quality time (though not enough, of course) with his parents who live in the area (I did, too, but not as much as they did). Grace had fun tearing through Grandma and Grandpa’s house. 🙂

I loved every minute of big, long hugs, meeting new friends, catching up with old ones, smiling until my face hurt, staying up too late, the late night run to Kroger for snacks and booze, ahem juice, bringing up all those remember-whens, loving on cute babies, realizing how many of us still had the pizza place’s number in our phones (just in case), laughing until we couldn’t breathe and promising that this time, we’re gonna do a better job at staying in touch.

As I always do, I wish I had taken more pictures. I just rarely pull out the camera because I prefer to be in the moment rather than behind the lens. For those of you who have found the secret of the ability to do both, please share. For now, here’s the few I have. (By the way, I’m still waiting on photo-laden emails to surprise me in my inbox or new albums on Facebook from all of you who did have those cameras out)

As an aside- the giant nasty bruise front the window falling on me is finally almost gone. ha!